Category: Food

Review: Cowboy Angus

  • May 29, 2022

This time I went to Hungry Jacks (the Australian version of Burger King) and once again ordered something I’d never usually consider: the Cowboy Angus.

As you can see I got the meal, and it may be a little difficult to see in the above shot but the box the burger was served in was massive. You could have easily fit a couple of Big Macs in there. I was terrified since I eat like a bird these days.

Here’s the marketing shot compared to what I got:

At first glance – and indeed at second – the bacon and onion rings seem absent. Perhaps they’re hiding inside:

So they were, albeit hardly as impressively abundant as the marketing suggests. You will also note the absence of any sauce, since I ‘had it my way’ and ordered the burger without mayonnaise, mustard or ‘sweet sauce’. I’m am not one to spoil perfectly dry food with evil sauces!

The first bite was ok and the second better. I had prepared for the worst after the debacle that was the macca’s burger, but about a third of the way in I realized this was fantastic!

This might be an ugly burger – and obviously it’s much too big – but the taste was quite wonderful. Each bite was an explosion of meaty goodness, with a hint of crispy onion and acceptable cheese. As much as I tried (did I say it was way too big) I couldn’t stop eating it and before I knew it had finished it all!

Of course I’ll never eat one again, but I have to say that overall this Grill Masters Cowboy Angus was delicious and worth the money Bernard is paying me to eat it! But I think that’s enough burgers for now… I think it’s time to try some chicken!

Review: BBQ Bacon Angus

  • May 25, 2022

I had a discussion with Sue the other day about art, and she stated that anything is art. Therefore let me create a piece of ‘food review art’ and tell you about my dinner the other night, a BBQ Bacon Angus burger!

This is an Australian McDonald’s menu item. Ordering this was an extremely brave and unusual step for me, since as most of you know I always just order the same thing (which at maccas would be a Big Mac meal). But I’m working as Bernard’s proxy here as a taster of new things, and I reckon this was one item he needed to hear about.

Here’s what the marketing photo looked like, compared to the one I got:

It’s a somewhat close approximation, although the cheese on mine wasn’t fully melted and the bacon was invisible from the outside. Peeping under the lid wasn’t promising:

Where’s the bacon?!? (Hidden in the back at the left if you look closely.) It didn’t look very appetizing but I was very hungry and it was time to see how this guy tasted…

At first things seemed promising: the bbq sauce was sweet and the meat tasted like a steak patty on a 1980s-era steak sandwich. But then I hit the cheese which gave me pause (it was a little rubbery) and then the ham bacon which stopped me dead (it was barely cooked and 50% fat).

I was about halfway through when the true horror of this Trojan burger revealed itself. But first let’s take a detailed second look at the official marketing photo:

Look at that white stuff at the bottom. What is it?!? Mayonnaise? Some evil sauce? I don’t know, but what I do know is it tasted awful.

Since my burger wasn’t symmetric, it wasn’t until I was at least halfway through that I hit a large deposit of this white stuff, and tasting it was like a punch to my face. I was immediately full of revulsion (had I eaten some already?) and regret (why didn’t I get a Big Mac?) and I’m sure I set some sort of speed record stuffing the remaining half of the burger into a bag and hurling it into the nearest trash can.

I’ll never eat one of these again, and truthfully wish I’d never had one in the first place. On a scale of 1 to 10, this gets about a -5.

Frozen Novelties (Part 3)

  • April 30, 2022

Since the second installment was six years ago, I think we’re long overdue for another post about licensed Australian ‘ice blocks’ from the good old days.

I remember these well. We were of course excited to have a new Star Wars themed ice block to suck on, but the inclusion of ‘Jedi jelly’ was a misstep! It was a strange semisolid material, half gummy and half jelly/jello and I recall it was very unpleasant to eat. I’m sure I preferred the older Star Wars ice blocks, and from what I read they were still available alongside the newer ROTJ version.

I have a very dim memory of the above, which was a standard choc-top style ice cream with doctor who branding. Apparently this was released in the 1980s and exclusive to ice cream freezers in shops (you couldn’t buy a box of them at the supermarket). That’s the wrapper on the right, with a stunning likeness of Tom Baker!

This is an interesting item since it was unique to Australia (the UK Who ‘ice lolly’ was different) and representative once again of how important licensed products were back then and how popular Doctor Who was in Australia.

Stickers were a polar inclusion in several series of iceblock, including Buck Rogers, The Bionic Man and the above (that’s one of the six spider man stickers on the right). It seems if you bought a box at a supermarket there would be a sticker inside, but if you bought an ice block at a corner store the owner had to give you the sticker. I’m sure I had a few, and possibly even still do in my sticker collection up in the attic!

I recall eating one of these at Charlestown Pool. I don’t remember the flavours, but I seem to remember the shapes lacked the detail shown in the marketing photo, and the colors ran when they melted. It was always fun to eat a messy ice block at the pool or beach, get it all over yourself, then go for a swim to wash it away 🙂

The Agro ice block is quintessentially Australian, and based around a wisecracking TV puppet popular with kids. It’s an obvious Bubble’o’Bill knockoff, but apparently was successful enough that Agro even had a second licensed ice cream!

As for Garfield… that damn cat was everywhere in the 1980s, including apparently in the ice block freezer! Toffee ice cream was a popular flavor in those days, and I reckon I must have ate one at least one of these once.

The more I looked the more I found, and the stranger and more unlikely the licenses became. The Mash ice block is particularly bizarre, and isn’t that almost Bob Hawke on the wrapper?!?

Some more licensed examples from the late 1970s and 1980s (apparently the fad lasted until about 1985). The Dracula one ‘bled’ and was similar to a product of the same name sold in the UK. The Space Invaders product reused old molds of ice blocks from the mid 70s named ‘Moonies’ and the Ultra Magnus one may not have actually made it to market (that’s an advertising sheet).

As for the Skippy one… it is apparently a product from the 1960s but that one image is all I can find on it! There also seems to have been Australian ice blocks for Happy Days, The A Team, Pac Man and King Kong but I can’t find any images (and suspect they were all identical to versions sold in the UK).

Not licensed, but nostalgic. Mint choc wedges were best, and I recall ‘Pepe’ well but would never have remembered the name! In fact I don’t eat much ice cream these days but wouldn’t say no to a frosty Pepe right now!

The above is a photo of an ad for a British ‘ice lolly’. I include it since I have a strong memory of an Australian ice cream also having a shaped stick, but I can’t find any evidence online. Do any of my readers recall anything of the sort from our youths?

And lastly in the previous post I mentioned my memories of an ice block with heat sensitive wrapper that displayed monster pictures and I’m pleased to say I’ve found it! This image is from a British advert for ‘Wall’s Magic Monster’ which suggests it was a similarly-named product by Pauls in Australia.

I vividly recall a day at Charlestown Pool digging wrappers out of garbages to collect the monsters, and ending up with quite the collection. I recall there were three different pictures, and I believe I cut them out of the wrappers and traded extras with friends for who-knows-what? I kept three good examples for many, many years, possibly right up until I left Oz. I used to keep them pressed between the pages of a book, but have no idea which book or what happened to it.

I bet they’re still there today…